Retraining business schools or reforming?
A letter to the editor of the New York Times
To the editor:
In response to Kelley Holland’s article (“Is it time to retrain business schools” March 14)
I taught at Babson College for 15 years before coming to Philadelphia University, whose roots are in the design fields. My experience with designers (architecture, fashion, industrial, et al) has brought to the surface many of the issues in Kelley Holland’s piece (“Is it time to retrain business schools” March 14). The simple answer to Kelley’s question is a resounding, “Yes”. But that’s where the simplicity ends.
I found a vast majority of MBA students have serious core beliefs rooted in fairness, ethical behavior and serving society. They also want to share in the value they create. Certainly, we can do more to embed ethics in commercial behavior, but teaching values is not the core issue. Also, I humbly submit that the problem is not framed by territorial parochialism or too much emphasis on analytics.
The problem may be structurally created by the formation of the business school as a distinct entity. In pursuit of business as a profession, higher education may have built social and curricular walls that define problems in disciplinary terms instead of human terms. No one has a finance or marketing problem; they have a problem that may need the tools of finance or marketing…or design and engineering…to solve the problem.
Business Schools need basic redesign that embraces the multi-disciplinary approach to every problem and opportunity. Otherwise, I believe business education will devolve to skills training in support of other professional endeavors and titles.
Maybe “retrain” is too simple a solution for business schools. Reform might be the better strategy.
Stephen Spinelli Jr., Ph.D.
President
Philadelphia University
What exactly are you suggesting? It is not at all clear.
About 20 years after computers became a necessary part of doing business, we, in the SBA, looked for more ways to integrate their use in all courses. We had the naive hope that courses dealing specifically and exclusively with computers could then be phased out and replaced by “real world” applications within other courses. It did not happen primarily because students needed the computer courses to give them the foundation concepts that they could then apply in other courses. Teaching those foundations takes time and focus as it does in other business areas.
I think this is a very important notion you mention above Mr. Miller, and I think that you are absolutely correct. Phasing out, say, a course on the technical use of computer software like Excel and Access (PhilaU’s Info Systems course, for example) in favor of merely incorporating a few exercises of such matter into other courses (Finance Seminar, for example)–which, to the dismay of students, takes terribly too long to prepare in the middle of a lecture and unfortunately is not hands on enough in classrooms located in any building but Tuttleman–is obviously a mistake. Your point is undeniably taken. This is not intelligent “reform.”
However, what the article addresses, and what Dr. Spinelli (I think) is attempting to reflect upon, is the fact that just because our economy (and more importantly our nation) has been sent back to the starting line, it doesn’t necessarily mean that we should begin on the same path again. With any systemic crisis–and, indeed, it is an institutional and systemically-corrupted series of events we’re seeking to overhaul–the answer is not “business as usual,” but instead calls for a gutted renovation and restructuring, based upon experience and mistakes that have been made.
It could mean this time around reshaping business processes, for example, with built-in checks and balances to prevent catastrophic neglect of human beings living in the margins of society and of regular Joe’s just trying to sock away a few dollars in their 401(k)s.
It does not mean that classical (and obviously proven) methods of doing business should be jettisoned and Schools of Business should rethink an entirely different curriculum. As your example illustrated, computers changed the entire scope of doing business–not just nationally, but transnationally. With the dawn of nano-technology along with myriad media of communication, over the last few decades, and exponentially more so today, the world has again seen expansive shifts in the way business can and is executed. I think herein lies the issue, especially as it relates to Schools of Business and higher education:
How does an institution of higher education, say, a Business School, (but this time around more intimately connected with the other schools of study) chart a new path? Again, not by chucking out the old and in with the (all) new; as your example showed, forgoing the necessary technical training on computers apparently turned out disastrous. Perhaps the leap from old to new was too large and incomprehensible. Times are different, however, so we must also keep in mind what the capacities of today’s young learning adults are. Business beyond our borders, language skills, cultural biases, and (sadly) sometimes ethnocentricity now calls for managers and knowledge workers to be able to understand how things are done elsewhere. Unfortunately, Schools of Business today lack in their ability to teach humanities. Refer back to the article:
“Critics of business education have many complaints. Some say the schools have become too scientific, too detached from real-world issues. Others say students are taught to come up with hasty solutions to complicated problems. Another group contends that schools give students a limited and distorted view of their role — that they graduate with a focus on maximizing shareholder value and only a limited understanding of ethical and social considerations essential to business leadership.”
I like Dr. Spinelli’s line of thinking here though: “No one has a finance or marketing problem; they have a problem that may need the tools of finance or marketing…or design and engineering…to solve the problem.” Also, have a look into the innovative cross-curriculum training now being offered at Philadelphia combining international business with the humanities; I think the new curriculum effectively seeks to explore the ever-important realm of geopolitics and how it affects business (transnationally).
Reform is probably a great way to put it.
Your right there are great opportunities but paying for one isn’t the best
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